Paul McLeary

In the spring and summer of 2001, then-Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld busied himself putting together a detailed briefing for Congressional leaders and national security officials that would outline where he saw threats in the post Cold War world. In many respects, he was on the money, focusing his presentation on terrorism, proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, cyberwarfare, and rogue nations. The plan was to alarm Congress enough to give Rumsfeld the political backing he needed to undertake a massive overhaul of how the Pentagon did business, and to drag the American military out of its Cold War mindset and into the realm of complex 21st century threats.